Recent News & Accomplishments
2019
For her work on inclusion and diversity in the Department and for co-founding the Inclusion Speaker Series, academic advisor Freddie Salley was awarded the Office of Multi-ethnic Student Education’s (OMSE) Excellent in Service Award for “outstanding contributions to advancing the inclusive excellence of multi-ethnic students on campus.” Salley has been an advisor in the Department for two years. In addition to her other duties—in which she is responsible for assigning undergraduate TAs to courses. While cofounding the Inclusion Speaker Series (with B.K. Adams and Ken Kolkason), she has served... read more
Professor Hanan Samet’s paper (written with students and colleagues) entitled “A New View on News,” has been awarded ACM SIGSPATIAL’s 10-year impact award for 2018. Originally published in 2008, this paper, which describes a system (called NewsStand newsstand.umiacs.umd.edu ) that uses a map query interface to collect, analyze, and gather news stories, has garnered many citations and has been the discussion of many researchers in the academic community. In October 2014, Samet’s work was the subject of a short video produced by the ACM. http://vimeo.com/106352925 NewStand monitors thousands of... read more
Dr. Jan Plane has been awarded the University System of Maryland Board of Regents' Award for Public Service. Plane was awarded for her contribu[tion] to the community through involvement in initiatives such as P-20 programs, clinical practice, professional or non-profit organizations, and public policy." The USM Award will be presented during the full Board of Regents' April meeting. Plane is the Director of the Maryland Center for Women in Computing (MCWIC) and the Associate Director of the Advanced Cybersecurity Experience for Students, the Honors College programs for cybersecurity (ACES)... read more
Professor Jonathan Katz has been named a Fellow of the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR). Katz is being honored “[f]or broad contributions, especially in public-key encryption and cryptographic protocols, and for dedication to service and education.” The IACR Fellows Program highlights their members who advance the science, technology and practice of cryptology; promote the free exchange of ideas and information about cryptology; encourage the professional skill and integrity of members of the community; and promote their community to a wider scientific community. "... read more
Professor Aravind Srinivasan and Assistant Professor John Dickerson are recipients of 2018 Google Faculty Research Awards. Their projects were two of 158 funded for this year out of 910 proposals from all over the world. Srinivasan and Dickerson’s award covers “tuition for a graduate student and provide[s] both faculty and students the opportunity to work directly with Google researchers and engineers.” Srinivasan and Dickerson will be engaging in research on optimization to tackle the problem, “AI for Efficient and Equitable Organ Allocation Policies.” In the end, their work seeks to lower... read more
Professor Larry Davis has been named a recipient of the 2019 USM Board of Regents' Faculty Award for Excellence in Research/Scholarship/Creative Activities. This award, which is the highest honor presented by the Board of Regents, is for "exemplary faculty members within the University System of Maryland," who demonstrate "exceptional scholarship, researrch or creative activity that extends or depends the bounds of knowledge and/or is recognized as innovations in the nominee's discipline." Davis has been a professor in the Department since 1981, after spending time at the University of Texas... read more
Professor Dinesh Manocha and Dean Amitabh Varshney among presenters
Prime Minister Andrej Babiš of the Czech Republic made a quick stop at the University of Maryland on March 6 to learn about research involving artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision, and virtual and augmented reality. The prime minister was on a state visit to the U.S., accompanied by his aides and international journalists. The visit was hosted by ISR Director William Regli (CS/ISR) and the university’s Office of International Affairs. Three demonstrations were presented in the Maryland Robotics Center’s Robotics Realization Lab. Professor Rama Chellappa (ECE/CS/UMIACS) and... read more
Emeritus Professor Ben Shneiderman has been featured in an article in GeekWire on the future of artificial intelligence policy in the United States. During a panel at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, moderated by AI2 CEO Oren Etzioni, Shneiderman proposed that a National Algorithms Safety Board that functions in a similar fashion to the National Transportation Saftey Board (NTSB). He suggests that is a possible model to ensure that proper action is taken during algorithmic failures. This NASB would have experts who could determine remedies to problems caused. Shneiderman... read more
on the Future of Robotics
In late February Professor Dinesh Manocha was interviewed by AAAS on the future of robotics. He was an exhibitor the Annual Meeting for the organization in which he demonstrated three very exciting Maryland inspired robots called Robo Terp, Robo Crab, and Robo-Raven. Manocha was made a fellow of the organization in 2011. One of the most important questions asked in the interview was about the future of robotics at the University for our students: *** What draws your students to this technology today? I get all kinds of students, especially at Maryland. I’m teaching a class on robotics. I’m... read more
Saha was advised by Professor Samir Khuller
Barna Saha (Ph.D, '11) has been named to the newest class of Sloan Fellows. Saha, advised by Professor Samir Khuller, is a theoretical computer scientist who also works on the mathematical foundations of data science. She is an assistant professor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst College of Information and Computer Science. "I try to determine the fastest possible algorithms for important optimization problems. I have managed to find significantly faster approximation algorithms for problems including shortest paths in graphs, matrix multiplication over certain algebraic structures... read more